PokeAlert – tracker that still works, with push notifications

August 16, 2016

PokeAlert is an Android app for tracking Pokemon that still works. Currently it’s version is 2.3.2-5(released on Aug 3, 2016), with only 1 author actively contributing to the development effort on GitHub. The app is one of the rare PokeVision alternatives that are still functional and actually useful.

PokeAlert – working Pokevision alternative with push notifications

Can you use PokeAlert? The short answer is yes, but be careful. The great thing is the fact app has push notifications when a tracked Pokemon appears. The amazing thing is that the app doesn’t require any special permissions.

The app is not officially on Play Store, but you can get the APK on Github. Make sure to create a throw away PTC Account for using the app. Installation instructions:

Enter your PTC Username and Password
(Warning: Do not use your main account information)

Press Scan and where ever your camera is centered is where the application will scan

PokeAlert Review (after a day of use)

We were testing the app for the past three days and our findings are a mixed bag. The app works and it’s completely functional, but it’s slow to load and to fetch data initaly. It took around 2 minutes for the initial scan to complete. Not to bad, but it could be faster.

We didn’t encounter any major problems with the usage, if you ever used a similar app you know what’s in store. The app uses Google Maps and doesn’t have a lot of options for the user to configure – only filter tracked Pokemon and some utility functions regarding the map.

You can enable push notifications in the app also. The push notifications display enough info to track and hunt down Pokemon. Great feature, works in the background also.

Pokemon icons display despawn times, exact location and Pokemon species. You can even move the map around and can areas that are not near your location.

The rendering speed is great and scanning a small area around you takes anywhere from 1 – 2 minutes. We were quite impressed with how the scanning works and the amount of data that the app displays was great.

So far, we were not banned, even though we used it extensively for the past day. We did catch some rares with it, but nothing noteworthy.